I Bought a Bike Lock

I bought a bike lock today. I just haven’t gotten my bike yet. My bike lock is cool tho. I can open it, and close it. And look at it. It’s black. I like it. The only problem with my bike lock is there isn’t a bike to lock up. My bike lock is just chillin. It’s not doing what it was meant to do: lock a bike.

A lot of times in my life I get ahead of myself. I just go. I do. I am active. I can put the cart before the horse, if you will. I buy a bike lock before I buy a bike. This doesn’t just happen practically in my life by buying a bike lock before a bike, though. Sometimes I catch myself getting ahead of God.

I think we can all do that. We make plans, then invite God into those plans to bless them. “Hey, uh, God, uh, hi. So, I have this five year plan, like, uh, it’s awesome. So, uh, if you know what’s up, you’ll join me in this life of mine.” That can be our conversation with God. The One who created everything. Jesus understood this about humanity.

He said to pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10 NIV)

A lot of times we start first with our kingdom and our will.

Because, we think, our kingdom is so much better than God’s. We understand what needs to happen better than God. We may not vocalize that because it makes us sound terrible, but we live our lives in that way. We live our lives for us. For our little middle class kingdom. For our own good. For our own will. Our lifestyle many times says, “His kingdom is great, but so is mine.”

Having our kingdom without being in God’s kingdom is like having a bike lock without having a bike. It doesn’t make sense. See this bike lock is gonna be great once I get a bike. At this point, though, it’s pretty useless. It’s great to plan and prepare. But we need to start planning and preparing in the context of God’s kingdom and God’s will. If we lived our lives in a way that brought God’s kingdom and God’s will more fully on earth then our plans would have more direction. God’s kingdom is bigger than ours. Just like the bike lock can’t do what it’s meant to do without a bike. We can’t be who we’re meant to be without God.

Let’s start with His kingdom and His will, then go from there. Let’s buy a bike, then grab the bike lock.